The present technology relates to a zoom lens used for an image capturing apparatus, and specifically, relates to a zoom lens which is used for image capturing apparatuses such as a digital video camera and a digital still camera and which is small in dimensions and is large in diameter and an image capturing apparatus using the zoom lens.
Digital video cameras, digital still cameras and the like using a solid-state image sensor such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) are rapidly spreading recent years. Such spread of the digital cameras and the like leads to a growing request for a zoom lens which is small in dimensions and large in diameter and which is excellent in portability and operable for a large number of pixels. In view of such a request, cameras mounting a zoom lens that is small in dimensions and large in diameter are increasing especially. As such a zoom lens, there has been typically known a zoom lens including four lens groups of a negative lens, a positive lens, a negative lens and a positive lens and having zoom magnifications of approximately 3 to 8 (for example, see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-343584).